The Young Queen and I are sitting in the same room together (something that doesn’t happen very often), and resolutely not talking to each other. Both of us have work we need to do – she has various job-related emails, I have a blog post to write – but if we start talking neither of us will get a thing done. I was thinking about what it says about our friendship that we can be in the same room and silent with one another. Though perhaps just saying that she is here, specifically to help me as I recover from my surgery, is enough. Regardless, I am very glad that she has come!

My smooth recovery from surgery has become a bit bumpy. I haven’t been recouping my strength or energy the way I would like. Last weekend the reason for this slowness became plain when my incision reopened in two places, showing the infection that had been beneath. The openings are not large, so the doctor prescribed a regimen of frequent dousing with hydrogen peroxide followed by clean dressings. I dutifully doused, and by the time I saw him on Monday, the infection was mostly gone. However, one of the openings is still there, and will require careful tending until it closes. So I am continuing with the peroxide treatment, and we’ll see how things are in a week.

Meanwhile, The Young Queen has been awesome, helping relieve Mom and Indy a bit, and being rather strict about not allowing me to overtax myself. This is a good thing – I tend to just keep going until I’m utterly exhausted and near collapse. So a friend who doesn’t hesitate to turn off the movie and send me off to bed is a rare and wonderful friend indeed. She’s also been doing lovely things like tending my rose garden, something I’ve only had time to occasionally think about with regret. She tells me that both my white and pink roses are blooming, which makes me very happy. I’m hoping that by the end of this week I might be well enough to walk over and see for myself.

Everyone is very busy around here these days. The preparations for AnniePott’s wedding are starting to enter the final phase. Indy has another craft night scheduled for Wednesday, where hopefully we’ll be able to produce the miles of garlands needed to decorate the reception site. The Duchess and 007 are working hard on getting their new house habitable. They’re getting closer – the electricity is on now, and hopefully any time they’ll have the plumbing to the point where they can get the water turned on. Right now the plan is to start actually living there in early July. They’ve had a long, hard struggle to get into a place of their own, and I know they’re looking forward to it very much!

My busyness is mostly working on the Super Secret Wedding Project, and doing my best to get better. It is a little frustrating to have so much technically free time on my hands, and so little energy to do anything with it! Hopefully that will fix itself soon . I can’t wait until it does!

Lately one of the hot topics of conversation when my family gets together has been real estate. The Duchess and 007 have been looking for just the right fixer upper for a few months now, ever since the live-in caregiver job that brought them back to Dayton came to an end. It’s been a hard time for them, checking out possibilities, finding one that seems perfect, and then things falling through. But they persevered, and finally just after Easter, their bid on a house was accepted. God willing, they’ll close next week, and start getting it ready to move in.

It’s a lovely house, roomy with I think three or four bedrooms and gorgeous construction details from a time when they knew how to build things right. There are hardwood floors, built in shelves and cabinets, a window seat on the stair landing. Best of all, it’s a little over a block from the Family Homestead, less than half a block from the row of townhouses where Mariah, Rosie, AP, and I all live. It’s going to be a wonderful home for them.

The not so great part is that the house is going to need a lot of work. It’s been empty for a while, which in our neighborhood means that some of the pipes are now missing. The roof has some problems. When 007 went to check it out, he discovered that the house originally had a slate roof, but at some point a previous owner decided to put asphalt shingles over it, which they fastened down by nailing through the slate. (Pardon me while I go have a small spell of the vapors – oh where did I put my smelling salts! ) Thankfully 007 is a very handy sort of man to have around the house, and I have no doubt that between him and The Duchess they’ll have it a showplace in no time.

The other couple talking real estate are Annipotts and Cuthbert. They are getting married soon, and have been trying to figure out what their living arrangements after the wedding will be. For a while it looked like Annipotts might be taking a job a bit north of here, so it was on hold. However, now it looks like she’ll still be teaching at her current school next year. It would be an easy thing to find an apartment, except Cuthbert comes with one daughter who lives with him full time, and another who is with him part time (My family’s reaction: “We will have ALL the nieces!”). So they need room for themselves, Cuthbert’s daughters, and, since every one of my married siblings has got pregnant in the first two months, room for a baby. (It’s not so much the kid as the kid’s toys…)

They had also been looking at houses near the Homestead, especially since there are some really beautiful ones currently for sale. However, one that was on a short sell publicly was for sale but privately promised to someone, and another seemed indefinitely caught in foreclosure limbo. So they reluctantly started looking elsewhere. They even put in a bid on one, but were secretly relieved when their bid was rejected.

Then, on Divine Mercy Sunday, I got on facebook for the first time in quite a while, and happened to see a post from The Virginian’s mother (she lives across the street from me). The house that had seemed stuck in foreclosure limbo, the one Annipotts and Cuthbert had really wanted, but had given up on, was suddenly coming on the market for one week only. Plus, it was at a ridiculously low price.

I shared this with Annipotts and Cuthbert. They went to look at the house as soon as they could. And it’s perfect. It’s huge- six to eight bedrooms, depending on how you set things up, living room, family room, and play room right off the big kitchen. Even a dog run already built in the back yard (Cuthbert’s daughter has a dog). The cherry on top is that it’s so nearby, a few houses down from the townhouses where a bunch of us live, half a block from where The Duchess and 007 will be, on the other side of the block from Mom & Dad. Perfect.

The catch is that the way the sale is set up, it’s essentially an auction. Any interested parties can submit a sealed bid during the week that the house is open. At the end of the bidding period, they’ll open all the envelopes, and whoever made the best bid gets the house. Annipotts and Cuthbert have put in their bid, but we won’t know for a while yet if they’ve won it. So we’re all praying very hard.

All of this house buying makes me want to win the lottery so I can buy the really, really beautiful house down the hill. It has a dovecote over the garage, and is big enough that I could realize a long-time dream of having a dining room big enough to fit my entire family at once. Unfortunately, the owners have priced it far too ambitiously, and even if they were being reasonable, I still would have to win the lottery. Le sigh.

On another topic, it has come to my attention that when a few of my sweet readers saw me refer to the unpleasant drug I’m currently taking as “chemo”, they became quite distressed, convinced that I must have cancer and just wasn’t telling anyone. I had four separate people approach me with much anxiety to discover whether I was in fact dying. It was very sweet. And frustrating. And evidence of how much they love me. It made me want to both give them big hugs, and also bang my head against the wall.

If you are one of the people who has been very worried, I am terribly sorry to have scared you like that. I would like to state for the record that I do not have cancer. I have a quite large fibroid in my abdomen. I am taking a chemotherapy drug to shrink the fibroid before I have surgery to remove it. I am not dying, at least no more than any other mortal. I’m hoping to keep it that way. Just so you know.

Life is full of strange coincidences. For example, this weekend I happened to end up babysitting my Korean niece (both her parents were prostrate with jet lag), and after playing Lets Go Through Aunt B’s Fabric Stash To Decide What We’re Going To Use For Doll Clothes, we decided to go hunting for acorns. While we were peering at the ground under the oak tree at the far end of our row of town houses, our neighbor who lives in the next house down came out. She is a great fan of our family, and has been enormously kind to us on various occasions, including letting us use her lovely house as a film set.

I introduced her to my niece, and said that we were hunting acorns. She said that she had a lot of acorns over under her tree, and would we like some of them, and oh, by the way, she had this piece of furniture that needed a home, and would I like to see it? I asked what kind of furniture it was, but did not get an answer. I agreed to come in anyway, partly from politeness, and partly because in a family as large as mine, someone has a need for just about anything. She led me into her dining room, showed me the most beautiful china cabinet, just standing there all empty, and asked me if I would like to have it.

Friends, I would. It was so beautiful, and exactly what I had been looking for without realizing it. You see, I have dishes. Lots of dishes. There’s the Fiestaware (currently mostly in the basement), and my grandmother’s Haviland china, and the random assortment of dishes I use everyday, and some bits of blue Chinese riceware (also in the basement), and random serving dishes of various kinds. And then there’s the many, many pieces of my own china, which I saw in a thrift shop one day years ago, promptly fell in love with, and have been collecting ever since. (Well, Mariah has collected a fair bit on my behalf too.)

So far what isn’t in the basement has been stashed in various places around the dining room and kitchen, where it tends to get pretty dusty and dirty in between uses. I’ve been trying to brainstorm better storage options, but so far most of them involved either massive shopping sprees at Ikea, or building my own furniture, both options about equally out of my reach. I’ve got plenty of other things to figure out right now, so it had been shunted off to my Deal With Another Day list, where it looked to stay for quite a while. And then there I was, Saturday afternoon, standing in my neighbor’s dining room as she offered me a gorgeous antique solution to my problem at a price I could absolutely afford. It was amazing.

The only challenge remaining was to get it to my house. I figured this would be no problem. After all, the next day the family was gathering to celebrate Honey’s birthday. There would be lots of hang out time before the meal as people waited for the food to be ready. Among those with little to do would be several brothers and brothers-in-law, most of whom tend toward the fit and able-bodied type. This should be really no problem at all.

And it wasn’t. The hardest part was convincing Cuthbert and 007 that yes, I was entirely serious, I was indeed asking them to take a quick jaunt to my neighbor’s to retrieve a china cabinet. Cuthbert’s first reaction was to laugh heartily, then come give me a hug, and tell me how cute he thought I was. I accepted the hug, and then just watched with deep enjoyment as he came to understand that, yes, I really meant it, and really, it actually was a reasonable request, and then accept fully that his afternoon now included moving furniture.

Boy-O and AP, being much more used to the whims of their sisters, did not question me at all. Once they were on board, it was easy, and the guys entered heartily into the spirit of the thing. All of them enthusiastically followed me over to my house, did the small rearranging that was necessary to make room for the china cabinet, and before I had time to call the neighbor lady to see if this was a good time, had gone over to her house and were knocking on her door. Once inside, they briefly assessed the situation, and before I knew it, they had the cabinet hoisted on their shoulders, and were out the door. I stayed a little while talking with my neighbor (after all, she had just given me a gorgeous antique). The guys must have decided that I had stayed quite long enough, because before too long they showed up again to fetch me too.

Now I have the fun of arranging my dishes in the cabinet, and deciding what to do with all the lovely, empty shelves I now have. It’s rather awesome.

This morning, little by little, people started gathering at the Family Homestead. I was the first to arrive, with my load of samgyeopsal supplies. Mom and Indy were already in the kitchen making fried chicken. I settled in at the dining room table to shred green onions for the pajori, green onion salad that goes with samgyeopsal while Dad vacuumed the living room floor. Soon Boy-O arrived with his girlfriend, and went upstairs to take a shower. 007 and The Duchess came with The Little Philosopher (though I think I may be revising her nickname soon), and 007 took over sweeping from Dad. Soon we had AnniPotts, Cuthbert, and The Absent-Minded Professor too.

I persuaded a few of my brothers and brothers-in-law to come move a little furniture for me (I just acquired the most beautiful china cabinet, but more about that later), and when we got back, Rosie, Mariah, Big Brother, Sunny, Honey, and Pigeon (he coos, people, seriously, it’s the most adorable thing) had come. The house was beginning to get pretty crowded. And then first Fleur, and then Sae, Mr. T, and Sweet Pea came through the door. And AnniPotts started to cry. Because for the first time ever, all of us were together under one roof.

It was a good party. We set up the samgyeopsal grill out in the living room (it’s tasty, tasty Korean grilled pork belly wrapped in lettuce with dipping sauce and green onions to make a lovely little packet of deliciousness you pop into you mouth and eat in one big bite). With all the in-laws and children, the house was bursting at the seams. Thankfully, the weather was mild enough that people could sit out on the front porch, and the kids could run around the back yard. Fleur and Honey discovered that they like playing with each other just as much now as they did two years ago. There were party hats. We sang Happy Birthday to Honey, and gave her awesome presents. The three toddlers bopped around the house at knee level (in the rare moments when they weren’t in someone’s arms) like small pinballs in a massive family pinball game. We tested Sweet Pea on her ability to say various people’s names (she can say hematite, but she still doesn’t know my name, le sigh). We were a whole family, together and complete for the first time in two years.

So I get to work this morning, feeling kinda put upon and rushed before I’d even dealt with my first employee, hoping against hope that a strong shot of coffee would do something to fix this headache I’ve been carrying for a couple of days now (related: wow, the sun was bright this morning!), and I go to check my blogs a little before I dive into the work of the day. And lo and behold, half my blogs (well, not the sewing ones) had decided to go all serious and philosophical on me. Bad Catholic has Why I Am Not A Heterosexual, Babes In Babylon has I Am Not an Independent Woman (ok, yeah, this posted last month, I’m a little behind), and even Seraphic has a piece on JP II and the current vocational confusion we’re living through. Except the Darwins. They, thank God, have Les Miz dis bear and silliness. Which makes me giggle every time I look at it, and I am profoundly grateful.

Also, the coffee is helping.

It’s been an interesting week. Buying a car is complicated, especially when you don’t have very much money. I had a sort of breakthrough on Monday when I was looking at all kinds of cars, and feeling fairly overwhelmed. I realized that what I really want is my old car back again, only maybe slightly newer and possibly with working AC or a working sound system – either one, I’m not picky. And as luck would have it, when I started searching specifically for the make and model of my car, I found about half a dozen fairly nearby (I could within 60 miles as nearby) that are at or near my price range. So now I just need to get the financing arranged, and figure out times/ways to go look at these cars. This is a little complicated, first because it involves money and applying for loans, and second because I don’t want to go alone, and I also don’t want to drive the Jesus van that far to go look at another car. For one thing, showing up in that behemoth would telegraph loudly just how desperate I am to get a new vehicle, and for another, I’d have to take out another loan just to pay for the gas. So this requires recruiting volunteers to help me, which is turning out to be difficult. It seems that most of my family and friends don’t really view going used car shopping as a desirable leisure activity. So far the only one who’s been willing to think about it is Pippi. But I’m going to keep working on this.

In other news, well, there is quite a bit of news I haven’t been mentioning for a while now. Big things have been doing in my family, but it wasn’t my news to tell, so I’ve been keeping my mouth shut. However, I’ve gotten approval from all the parties involved, and I am now delighted to announce that my family is expanding once again. This is happening in two ways. First, a while back Sae told us that she and Mr. T would be welcoming another little bundle of joy this coming January. Lord knows my family loves nothing in the world so much as babies, so we are all utterly thrilled.

Second, a few weeks ago AnniPotts was celebrating her six month dating anniversary with her beau Cuthbert. He decided to take advantage of the occasion to present her with a ring. The engagement kind of ring. AnniPotts said yes, and now we’re looking at another family wedding sometime next Summer. And as delightful as new babies are, my sisters getting married to men who think they are one of the best things God ever created is even more delightful. So we’re all very happy for the two of them.

The other really big news is that The Duchess and 007 are moving back to Dayton. They’ve been wanting to move nearer for a while now, but the circumstances just kept not quite working out. However, some good friends of theirs have offered them a place to live with an elderly relative who shouldn’t live alone anymore, and they decided to take the plunge. So at the end of the month, we’ll have all the siblings except Big Brother living in Ohio again. And that’s pretty good too.

Sarah Whittle, coral stitch: You can use different thread thicknesses or change the angle of the knot to give different effects. Coral stitch can be used on straight or curved lines as well as being used as a textured filling stitch. When using as a filling stitch place the knots into spaces between the knots of the previous row .